Legal Aid Service Provider's Network

The  School  of  Law  at  Makerere  University  established  a  fully-fledged  Public  Interest  Law Clinic (PILAC) in  January  2012, with  the  purpose of enhancing the practical application of Clinical Legal Education (CLE) to Law students.  The project mainly aims at building the capacity  and  skills  of  Ugandan  Lawyers  to  enable  them  initiate  and  pursue  public  interest litigation,  teach  CLE  as  well  as  organize  and  manage  the  students’  clinics.  It  also  aims  at creating an avenue for  the  provision of legal services to Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) which  use  public  interest  litigation  as  one  of  their  strategies,  with  the  ultimate  goal  of
creating a network  of legal aid clinics in Uganda, Africa and the world.    The project will also facilitate research  on public interest litigation cases in the courts of Uganda, and institute a system of amici curiae (‘friends-of-the-court’) briefs. PILAC  is  spearheading  research  with  the  view  to  undertaking  litigation  relevant  to  the advancement  of  Public  Interest  Law  for  the  protection  of  the  vulnerable  members  of society.  While the success of this  initiative is conditional on very many factors, HURIPEC believes  that  before  the  clinic  ventures  into  more  active  legal  aid  provision  and  strategic impact litigation, it is necessary to understand the current environment and context of legal aid  and  strategic  impact  litigation.   This  involves  reviewing  the  major  legal  framework  on legal aid and strategic impact litigation and most importantly understanding the  work of the various key actors in the sector.
For this reason PILAC commissioned a three month baseline survey in January 2012 to map out the  key legal aid service providers  and the most important  actors in  the area of  strategic impact  litigation.   It  is  our  hope  that  the  survey  will  guide  PILACs  future  work  and interventions  and also  help to  identify opportunities for collaboration on existing initiatives. The survey is also expected to  isolate the  key challenges faced in legal aid service provision and strategic impact litigation.

This study was conceived against the background that access to justice is an important right, which should be enjoyed by all people in the world irrespective of their socio-economic and political differences. On the whole, there are critical gaps in the existing efforts by government to enhance access to justice through the provision of legal aid services to the poor. Key legal aid provisions
such as access to legal information, legal literacy and legal services, the basic requirements to harness legal and judicial systems, are largely provided by civil society organizations instead of government. It is not clear how many other legal aid providers exist in the country, where they operate and how. Recent policy shifts in Uganda have tended to emphasize, among others, a decentralized system of service delivery. However, whereas this system has worked relatively well in a number of social service sectors (such as health and education) in reaching the rural poor, it is not known how effective this can be in the provision of legal aid services. It is against this background that this study was carried out. This study was conceived under the broad goal of establishing mechanisms for the enhancement of fundamental human rights and freedoms and, more particularly, the need for improved access to justice by indigent categories of the Ugandan population. The ultimate objective of the study was to establish the nature and character of legal aid service provisionin Uganda, the findings of which were hoped to inform processes for improving legal aid service provision in the country.